"Me, I'm only too glad to put my feet up and do nothing for a change," Hasselt said. "I'm breaking in a new pair of ballet shoes for the Dem. and my blisters are spectacular."
"Miss Hasselt," said Stewart, obviously quoting, "it is a student's business to preserve her body in a state of fitness at all times."
"That may be," said Hasselt, "but I'm not standing in a bus for five miles on a Saturday night to go anywhere, least of all to a theatre."
"Anyhow, it's only Shakespeare, my dears," Dakers said. "It is the cause, my soul! " she burlesqued, clutching at her breast.
"Edward Adrian, though," volunteered Lucy, feeling that her beloved theatre must have one champion.
"Who is Edward Adrian?" Dakers asked, in genuine inquiry.
"He's that weary-looking creature who looks like a moulting eagle," Stewart said, too busy about her hostess's duties to be aware of the reaction on Lucy: that was a horribly vivid summing-up of Edward Adrian, as seen by the unsentimental eyes of modern youth. "We used to be taken to see him when I was at school in Edinburgh."
"And didn't you enjoy it?" Lucy asked, remembering that Stewart's name headed the lists on the notice-board along with Innes's and Beau's, and that mental activity would not be for her the chore that it probably was for some of the others.
"Oh, it was better than sitting in a class-room," Stewart allowed. "But it was all terribly-old-fashioned. Nice to look at, but a bit dreary. I'm a tooth-glass short."
"Mine, I suppose," O'Donnell said, coming in on the words and handing over her glass. "I'm afraid I'm late. I was looking for some shoes that my feet would go into. Forgive these, won't you, Miss Pym," she indicated the bedroom slippers she was wearing. "My feet have died on me."